As reported previously, the Province of Uganda will consecrate one American bishop on Sunday 2 September.
In addition to the links from that report, here is the full text of a letter from Archbishop Orombi to the Rectors, Clergy, and Lay Leaders of Ugandan Churches in America. A biography of John Guernsey is available here. A further report in the Church of England Newspaper is available here.
A second bishop will also serve: see this further press release about Bishop Andrew Fairfield.
How come it’s only certain Lambeth Resolutions that are touted as expressing the mind of the Anglican Communion. How many bishops in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Southern Cone, SE Asia, voted for THIS 1998 Resolution?: “Resolution V.13 Episcopal Responsibilities and Diocesan Boundaries This Conference: a. reaffirms Resolution 72 of the Lambeth Conference of 1988 “Episcopal Responsibilities and Diocesan Boundaries”; and b. requests the Primates to encourage the bishops of their Province to consider the implications of Resolution 72 of the Lambeth Conference 1988.” The resolution referred to being of course this one: “Resolution 72 Epsicopal Responsibilities and Diocesan Boundaries This… Read more »
“Finally, I want to say how pleased and encouraged I am to hear that Bishop Duncan has called for a Council of Bishops meeting for the Common Cause partners in September. This is the kind of movement toward unity among orthodox entities in the USA that is hopeful for the future of a Biblical North American Anglican witness and must be pleasing to our Lord. We have already been assured that Bishop-elect Guernsey will be invited to that meeting, and we have asked him to work closely with all Bishops serving American congregations that are canonically part of Global South… Read more »
QUOTE. We will all need to walk in the light with one another; to extend grace, love, and mutual respect to one another; and to be transparent in our communication. UNQUOTE. Additional decode taken for granted: Straight con-evo believers only need apply. Canterbury’s prediction that things were going to get a lot messier with overlapping (and probably competing in some sense?) Anglican jurisdictions is surely coming true, since con-evo believers can no longer brook rubbing shoulders in church life with prog-lib believers or world faith believers or queer folks, the way we live peacefully together, say, on our modern work… Read more »
Well, when hese walers walk, and join up, they’ll exclude themselves. Gosh, there might even be a possibility of church plants in the major cities of these African Countries!
According to this blogger – http://drlake.blogspot.com/2007/08/akinola-comes-to-wheaton.html – +Akinola will be joining the Chicago network of AMiA parishes for worship in Wheaton College chapel on Sept 23. Rallying the troops before the Sept 30th deadline? I wonder who else he will drop in on in that week?
“Biblical North American Anglican witness”
Will these be called Anglican Bible Churches?
Or perhaps “Full-Gospel Anglican Churches”?
Imagine, we now have former Episcopalians who are fundamentalists! I suspect some of our fellow liberals, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Lutherans, Methodists, must be chuckling when they are not despairing.
What a sad story. The African bishops are creating a collection of small Protestant sects.
Andrew
“How come it’s only certain Lambeth Resolutions that are touted as expressing the mind of the Anglican Communion.” MJ, Because this is a DIRE PASTORAL EMERGENCY!!!!!!! EVERYBODY PANIC!!!!! Some conservatives in the US, and especially, though not limited to, some expat Africans, might have to actually deal with gay people as something other than a revolting abstraction, and we can’t have that. Some of them might even decide to turn gay if they think it’s all right to do so. It would endanger their immortal souls to have to endure such a thing for a few years till this all… Read more »
Aside from theology, John is a personal friend of mine, in fact, he baptized me as an adult, 10 years ago. We don’t agree at all on gay issues within the church – I am for full inclusion on all levels; he is opposed. Yet, somehow, we remain mutually respectful. As a member of a continuing congregation, one that voted to leave the Episcopal Church, and left us stranded as a remnant by seizing the property, I can tell you that John’s church, about 10 miles distant, did not do that — they successfully concluded a negotiated settlement with the… Read more »
I’ve got a hunch that these African bishops are going to be part of a very lonely crowd here in the states.
Time and again, TEC was told that it needed to rovide for the spiritual needs of those with an hisotirc understanding of morality and Scriptural authority. That is the background for the GS primates’ actions. Having failed to provide for that spritual need, TEC now cries that others determined to do so. Crocodile tears if you ask me.
It seems both encouraging and sad that Spot’s post (above) at least embraces a charitable spirit. On the positive side he wishes his friend (though an adversary) well – nice touch. But on the down side he admits his inclination that his friend’s mission would fail. Is that what we’ve come to? Political parties in a battle for power? Listen, there are less than 800k persons in Episcopal pews in the US on any given Sunday. Given their incredible head start in this country (they were here first!) it is more than a little embarrassing that they’ve done such a… Read more »
Thanks for the wonderful insight into Fr Guernsey. I think that even if groups cannot find a way to live together, then they can at lease separate in ways that are respectful and loving!
If you would like to see what’s really happening inside “Holy Uganda”, Google “gayuganda” for some personal testimony.
Curtis says “I’ve got a hunch that these African bishops are going to be part of a very lonely crowd here in the states.” REALITY CHECK! Do you know that TEC is very much in a minority in US Christianity, Curtis?? There is more to the US Christian scene than the fewer than 1 million (and dropping) people who go to TEC churches on a Sunday, you know, Curtis! I know people like +Duncan are in a minority in TEC….but they are very mainstream in the AC and if you look at the USA, on the presenting issues, they are… Read more »
“The RCC seems able to survive with the Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits. Why couldn’t American Anglicans live side-by-side with AMiA, CANA and Kenya? I know it sounds crazy, but maybe God is doing something here.”
They couldn’t . . . because comparing religious orders under *one* unified church, the RCC, isn’t REMOTELY analogous to a situation of competing churches (some of whom consider others *apostate*)? Sometimes “sounds crazy”, IS crazy!
I’d add to my prior post that if John and I could manage to stay in personal communion, why couldn’t have parishes in the Diocese of Virginia have done the same? As a parish became known for either being inclusive based on its corporate theological discernment, or, orthodox based on a literalist interpretation, people of like minds could have gravitated towards the one in which they were naturally akin. As a liberal, I had, nor have, any problem with that at all. Those that voted to leave TEC, and their new Archbishops, and Amercian missionary authorities, however, insist that all… Read more »
“REALITY CHECK! Do you know that TEC is very much in a minority in US Christianity, Curtis??”—NP
DOUBLE REALITY CHECK!! Because we Episcopalians have ALWAYS been a minority compared to the prod sects NP, we have always defined ourselves against the Calvinism of the American Puritans. This has been true whether one was High Church Catholic, like Bishop Samuel Seabury, or Low Church Latitudinarian, like Bishop William White. Even in colonial times, the further North one traveled toward New England Puritanism, the more numerous the High Church Anglican parishes became, as Episcopalians challenged the Calvinists on their home turf.
“rovide for the spiritual needs of those with an hisotirc understanding of morality and Scriptural authority.” And these would be what, exactly? How is one of Gene Robinson’s co-consecrators unable to minister to the spiritual needs of those with a “historic understanding of morality and Scriptural authority”? What is this “historical understanding”? Friendliness to gay people is one. How is it straying from the Gospel to say that we hould be treated with respect and dignity, as fallible broken human beings in need of God just like everybody else? It’s not about whether or not they believe gay people should… Read more »
_The question which matters is…..does Rowan Williams want to see them coming to England?_ NP
Ah, the threat, the bullying.
Ignore the bullies. Let us see their true colours, with the Nigerian English bishop, and a few congregations leaving their church buildings to go somewhere else. Let’s just see who and how many.
Let us see England, declared so far as not being “apostate”, suddenly becomes apostate in their eyes, like a wave of the magic wand – what I said before in that it just depends on the opinion of the moment from the self-proclaimed.
RE:”+Akinola will be joining the Chicago network of AMiA parishes for worship in Wheaton College chapel on Sept 23. “
Now that’s what I’d call border crossing! 😉
Dan posted: Time and again, TEC was told that it needed to rovide for the spiritual needs of those with an hisotirc understanding of morality and Scriptural authority. That is the background for the GS primates’ actions. Having failed to provide for that spritual need, TEC now cries that others determined to do so. Crocodile tears if you ask me” Would someone please offer some concrete evidence to substantiate this charge of negelct? This charge is constantly made as if it is a well known fact. But what is it’s basis? How are these “poor” folk being neglected and persecuted?… Read more »
ok Kurt….so you seem to know (unlike Curtis)that TEC is not mainstream (not in catholic or protestant terms)….this is why the AC has spent the last few years trying to get TEC to behave like a member of the “communion” it claims to be part of……REALITY CHECK – if you want to be part of a communion, don’t tear its fabric by your actions (especially if you have very little support across the communion) Pluralist….do you see terrible, unreasonable threats?? -Yes, we threaten to stick to agreed AC positions. Disgraceful, I know! -Yes, if needs be, faithful bishops will be… Read more »
“I know people like +Duncan are in a minority in TEC….but they are very mainstream in the AC and if you look at the USA, on the presenting issues, they are very mainstram in US Christianity too (especially if you look at the growing churches!)…..so maybe the African bishops will not be as lonely as you hope in the US.” But, as I keep pointing out to you, NP–they are NOT mainstream in the US population at large and certainly not among the upcoming younger generation. The right-wing churches in this country are going to face a crisis in the… Read more »
As with many realignment preachments, the neglect forced upon con-evo (even quasi-fundamentalist parishes when it comes to their notions of queer folks) simply boils down to two things: A)their considered views were only their views, and the rest of the spectrums of TEC discernment existed right along side their views, plus B)regardless of their views, they were asked to respect the dignity and worth of all persons, including especially queer folks since that target group was such a dire sticking point for so many of them. Push came to shove around the fault line of sacramental ministry. Given the profound… Read more »
“most of us in the AC do not think there is faithful Anglican witness in certain parts of TEC”
And you get to speak for the whole Anglican Communion because……certain conservative primates bolster your legalism and you can claim to speak for their flocks of millions? Gee. I don’t even claim to speak for my entire parish. Must be a great feeling to have that power! As to faithful Anglican witness, in what way are you qualified to make that judgement?
And how exactly are conservatives providing for the needs of their liberal parishioners, in Sydney, Nigeria, or Fort Worth?
Not at all. Such hypocrites!
Spotsyltuckian, Great name! I am for the most part in agreement with you, but: Do not fall for the trick of using “orthodox” to mean Biblically literalist, most of the “reasserters” would reject that name, I think, though I’m not sure why. Further, Orthodoxy is NOT Biblically literalist. What we are seeing is a further narrowing of the definition of the word “orthodox”. It has always been used to mean “what we believe as against what others believe” it is now being used in that spirit, but to refer to extremely heterodox ideas liike Biblical literalism. These people are NOT… Read more »
Oh, this is all so very tiresome. There is not one single Anglican soul in this country (except gays and women priests in some “orthodox” places) who has not been welcomed, ministered to, pastorally cared for, provided with the Sacraments, taught, counseled, married, and buried in the Episcopal Church. This canard that “orthodox” Anglicans have been somehow rejected or victimized or cast out is sheer and total baloney. It’s part of the Big Lie. If any Anglicans in America are not presently being ministered to in an Episcopal Church is simply because they have CHOSEN not to be ministered to… Read more »
NP wrote: “The question which matters is…..does Rowan Williams want to see them coming to England? If he tries to fudge the VGR issue in the next 5 weeks, we will see them in England – but I do not think we will see that given the ABC’s record of keeping together the greatest number of people possible in the AC which has led him to act as he has (eg Tanzania) in the last few years.” I’m afraid that NP doesn’t remember that England has historically responded to threats and thugs, of varying persuasions, by standing up to them… Read more »
Pat – you just don’t seem able to compute…..saying “but society is liberal” is not something to mention when liberal churches are shamefully empty and still losing people! Ford…no, I am not speaking for the AC but looking at what its Primates have actually said eg backing Lambeth 1.10, TWR and the Tanzania Communique (I am not making it up or saying what I wish they said….just going by what they have said! I am funny like that….always going back to actual words rather than reading in what I want) Jerry – you’re ignoring FACTS again….do you even know about… Read more »
“what he did with his old friend Jeffrey John???”
Which was?
It’s funny you mention the ‘name thing,’ Ford. I can’t figure out what to call them anymore. When we call them Nigerians or Ugandans, depending on which AB they report to, they don’t seem to like that very much. I can’t bring myself to call them Anglicans, since the only Anglican tradition to which they really relate would be the twenty years of Cromwell. After one of their priests called the pending baptism of my new beloved Godson, ‘mumbo jumbo,’ in lieu of an adult born-again conversion, I might try calling them Anabaptists, though that seems a bit obscure. After… Read more »
“the pending baptism of my new beloved Godson, ‘mumbo jumbo,’ “ Hypocritical for those who claim the title ‘orthodox’ to be so heterodox, and not only in this! The veneration of the emotional conversion experience goes back even to St. Paul, really, but it’s certainly not necessary for faith, and really quite childish in a lot of ways. I don’t think we’re facing a new Reformation as much as a new Great Schism. The parallels are marked: two radically different cultures, different languages, different “religious culture” for want of a better word, one side calling it’sself ‘orthodox’, bishops fighting like… Read more »
NP notes “liberal churches are shamefully empty and still losing people!” That’s the problem with these liberals — always appealing to un-Anglican and un-Biblical criteria like Experience to validate their apostasy.
I love the way that NP ignores the inconvenient points made by most of the posters to this site, and instead begins his/her latest new prayer, that the ABC might cave in to bullying, with his/her nauseatingly repeated “In the name of the Lambeth 1.10, and of The Windsor Report, and of the Tanzania, Amen.”
As said by others, NP, “Puh-leeze.”
What i keep wondering and nobody seems to be asking is to whom are all these bishops going to minister? There seems to be one for every street corner. If we leave aside for a moment the handful of diocese that are unhappy (who have their own bishops anyway), there must be about 1 bishop for every ten parishes by now. Which makes me wonder if this is more about some priests wanting a pretty pointy hat than it is about theology.
“I can’t bring myself to call them Anglicans, since the only Anglican tradition to which they really relate would be the twenty years of Cromwell. After one of their priests called the pending baptism of my new beloved Godson, ‘mumbo jumbo,’ in lieu of an adult born-again conversion, I might try calling them Anabaptists, though that seems a bit obscure.”— The Spotsyltuckian
The reason you can’t bring yourself to call them Anglicans is because they really are not Anglicans; they are neo-Puritans, or, Calvin-lovers, or whatever. But they are not Anglicans/Episcopalians.
Wrote Kurt: “The reason you can’t bring yourself to call them Anglicans is because they really are not Anglicans; they are neo-Puritans, or, Calvin-lovers, or whatever. But they are not Anglicans/Episcopalians.”
Why not call them what they are–“hijackers”!
“NP notes “liberal churches are shamefully empty and still losing people!” That’s the problem with these liberals — always appealing to un-Anglican and un-Biblical criteria like Experience to validate their apostasy.”
And when I gave him the anecdotal evidence of my own growing mainstream “liberal” parish and the neighboring hard-core right-wing parish that closed its doors after declining to 35(!) members, he ignored it.
Right on, John Henry!
“to whom are all these bishops going to minister?”
Each other?
But, NP, the Road to Lambeth essentially demands positions and approaches which the CofE couldn’t counternance and wouldn’t support.
The aim is to keep the church together – caving in to the far-right fringe won’t do that any more than agreeing with all the US innovations.
Williams’ aim has always been to keep all on board. That includes the Americans. But the Road to Lambeth wouldn’t even keep a third of the CofE on board, for it sees no place for liberals in the Church.
Pat – if you are going to try a put down, at least make it a good one……so, you can give one example but you are aware of the pitiful TEC numbers, declining year by year (official TEC nos) In England, it is just as bad…..I know because I sit on synods where we are asked to pay more Parish share to subsidise the failure of others who seem to do very little gospel work and refuse to run Alpha etc – like the lady vicar who said in my Deanery Synod that she was not in her job “to… Read more »
And when I gave him the anecdotal evidence of my own growing mainstream “liberal” parish and the neighboring hard-core right-wing parish that closed its doors after declining to 35(!) members, he ignored it.
I think 35 isn’t bad at all.
Some of us think Jesus recommended gatherings of only ‘two or three gathered togetherin my name…’
“… a verse to show an acoholic or an adulterer is entitled to be a bishop” Several members of the HoB besides VGR are recovering alcoholics. Since the concept of alcoholism as a disease is alien to the world of the Bible, I’m not sure where you would find evidence for this prohibition. As for adultery, if you are talking about VGR, he and his wife divorced some years before he met his partner, and his wife had remarried before that happened. I don’t see any adultery here. If you mean any remarriage after divorce is adultery, a LOT of… Read more »
NP said: “So, Pat….do a stats course. One example does not make a trend…..you might learn that quite early on in the course. The trend – especially in liberal TEC is down….according to TEC nos (despite the stupid arguments I hear here that being more liberal is what is needed to appeal to a liberal society – ignoring that even in the Anglican church it is evangelical (conservative and charismatic) churches which are the source of growth.” It’s not as simple as you would like to make out, with Liberals declining and Conservatives growing. Take a look at the report… Read more »
“So, Pat….do a stats course. One example does not make a trend…..you might learn that quite early on in the course. The trend – especially in liberal TEC is down….according to TEC nos (despite the stupid arguments I hear here that being more liberal is what is needed to appeal to a liberal society – ignoring that even in the Anglican church it is evangelical (conservative and charismatic) churches which are the source of growth (even in England)” For now–it’s a short-term trend, NP. The trend in western society is to greater tolerance, not lesser…and has been for its entire… Read more »
yeah, yeah Pat…..”For now–it’s a short-term trend, NP” All I can tell you is that we have thousands in our main church and plants in London (CofE) and we are desperate for space as we continue to grow with all races, ages and classes…..it is pathetic to see the “liberals” near us begging the dioese for money to pay utility bills and never making the link between what they teach and the fact nobody comes to join their churches…..it’s always someone else’s fault – not their teaching which attracts nobody… – they can see huge growth in the evangelical CofE… Read more »
Laurence Roberts wrote: “And when I gave him the anecdotal evidence of my own growing mainstream “liberal” parish and the neighboring hard-core right-wing parish that closed its doors after declining to 35(!) members, he ignored it.”
No manners at all.
Why cite mere facts MJ, when they get in the way of NP’s self-assumed “eternals”?